Emma Thompson Quotes

But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don't really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders - some of them - up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use

Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.

We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.

I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter, and able to give people a clean drink of water. I don't want images of starving babies at the breast in my mind. I want that to change. And if I want that, I had better do something about it.

I don't think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there's some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.

Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.

But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.

I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic - basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately.

The Catholic Church - it's so difficult because I don't want say anything offensive but it makes me very angry that religious leaders from this faith have tried to respond negatively to sexual education and to the promotion of condom use

Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.

I was brought up by very witty people who were dealing with quite difficult things: disease and death... I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals.

Maybe I don't take myself so seriously any more. And I don't care how I'm judged. I'm past all that.

When husbands and fathers leave, their wives and daughters tend to value themselves less as a result.

You can't imagine what satisfaction can be gotten from throwing a pie into someone's face.

During an election, it's like they're doing my job: they're going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it's the same thing.

Just write. It doesn't matter what you write. Just sit at your desk and write.

A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they're thinking about is how they look.

Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.

What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together

Sometimes you'll have some things, and sometimes you'll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it's not good for you.

The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.

Constantly worrying about your reflection and criticizing your body, shape and size is an act of violence against yourself.

The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great, so that everyone looks forward to it.

We must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives.

Children are the most wonderful audiences. What's struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.

The insanity of consumption bothers me. Talk about the opiate of the masses. It ain't religion anymore. It's stuff.

There is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty.

If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

My worst quality is impatience.

If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

Without the ice, the earth will fall

I don't mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it's not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one's field. Public perks. Like, I don't know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two.

This morning, I went to wipe my hands on a tea towel, and while I was using it, it seemed like it felt a bit light. I unfolded it and realized my daughter had cut little bits out of it to make frocks for her dolls!

We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.

My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman.

Once you're a mom, you've been split into two people. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow.

My husband is here and I'd like to thank him, for many things, but first of all for pointing out that I had a big hole in my frock and then that my nipples were pointing in different directions. It's good to have an expert there to help you with that sort of thing.

We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really

Indeed - judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.

I think the point about ActionAid is what it's asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.

The best way [to survive] the red carpet is by wearing Ugg boots. But unfortunately, I have not yet managed to persuade the people who style me at these times to let me do that.

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.

I am who I am, and there is nothing I can do about that.

Laughter is a celebration of our failings. That's what clowns are for. And that's what I am.

The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people - which I don't ever want to do... So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it's profoundly enjoyable.

A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It's due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time - about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.

I've a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments.